PUSHKIN

As the bicentenary of the birth of Alexander Segeevich Pushkin
arrives in 1999, a discerning biography with exciting new material,
has been published by the poet and novelist ELAINE FEINSTEIN
(Weidenfeld and Nicholson, £20). This reveals a man of
reckless ebullience and ready wit whose unruly behaviour
concealed an enduring loneliness.

Elaine Feinstein was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of
Literature in 1980 , and received a Cholmondeley Award for
Poetry in 1990. Her versions of the poems of Marina Tsvetaeva
remain in print after more than 25 years. Lady Antonia Fraser
described Elaine Feinstein's biography of Tsvetaeva, as
'the most inspiring biography I have read this year'.

REVIEWS OF ELAINE FEINSTEIN'S 'PUSHKIN'

'Elaine Feinstein's precise, cool biography will make a good
introduction to his extraordinary life and work.'
D.M.Thomas, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

'It was a sad conclusion to a brilliant, embattled life,
and however tiresome and obstreperous the young Pushkin may
have been, by the time one reaches the end of Elaine Feinstein's
biography, one's sympathies are all on his side.' Jeremy Lewis,
THE EXPRESS

'In presenting these paradoxes, Feinstein has produced an
impressively rounded and compelling portrait of one of
literature's great figures.' William Scammel THE SPECTATOR

'Ms Feinstein is particularly strong on Pushkin's luminous use
of Russian for readers who are forced to read opaque
translations....a balanced, intelligent biography.' THE ECONOMIST

'Feinstein has uncovered new material surrounding Pushkin's death,
and being a poet herself, she gives a sensitive appraisal of both
the verse and the prose.'
LITERARY REVIEW